Seismic and acoustic signals from the 2014 'Interstellar Meteor'

TL;DR

This study reanalyzes seismic and acoustic data related to the 2014 'Interstellar Meteor', finding previous seismic signals were spurious and the acoustic location estimate was inaccurate, suggesting the recovered material is not from the meteor.

Contribution

It provides a critical reassessment of seismic and acoustic evidence for the 2014 interstellar meteor, clarifying the true origin of the signals and location.

Findings

Previous seismic signals were spurious.

Acoustic data suggests a location far from the reported fireball.

Recovered material is likely unrelated to the meteor.

Abstract

We conduct a thorough analysis of seismic and acoustic data from the so-called `Interstellar Meteor' which entered the Earth's atmosphere off the coast of Papua New Guinea on 2014-01-08. We conclude that both previously-reported seismic signals are spurious -- one has characteristics suggesting a local vehicular-traffic based origin; whilst the other is statistically indistinguishable from the background noise. As such, previously-reported localisations based on this data are spurious. Analysis of acoustic data provides a best fit location estimate which is very far ($\sim$170~km) from the reported fireball location. Accordingly, we conclude that material recovered from the seafloor and purported to be from the meteor is almost certainly unrelated to it, and is likely of more mundane (non-interstellar) origin.